Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act

In 1990, Congress enacted the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act (CACSA), a law that requires officials at all colleges and universities to implement policies concerning security and access to campus facilities; procedures for students and others to report crimes; and programs to inform students about the prevention of crimes, the relationship between campus security and local law enforcement, and collection and reporting procedures for criminal offenses.

The duty to report crimes applies to officials on campuses and at facilities owned by institutions of higher learning as well as to public property such as sidewalks, streets, or parking lots that are in the reasonably contiguous area of campuses. The crimes that must be reported include homicide, murder and non-negligent manslaughter, negligent manslaughter, sex offenses whether forcible or nonforcible, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, manslaughter, arson, and arrests of persons referred for disciplinary action involving liquor law violations or weapons possession (Institutional Security Policies and Crime Statistics Regulations (Regulations), 34 C.F.R. § 668.46 (c)) (CACSA, § 1092 (f)(2)(F)(i)). If institutions have more than one campus, then reporting must be done separately for each campus (Regulations, § 668.46 (d)).

The requirements for reporting crimes to students are comprehensive. In addition to reporting the numbers of crimes per category listed above, higher education authorities must report crimes by category of prejudice if victims appeared to have been intentionally selected because of their actual or perceived race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or disability (Regulations, § 668.46 (c)(3)). Crimes must be reported by the locations where they occurred, specifically on campus, in student dormitories or other residential facilities, in or noncampus buildings or properties, or on public properties (Regulations, § 668.46 (c)(4)). Reporting statistics must be done using the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook (Regulations, § 668.46 (c)(7)).

Higher education officials are permitted to use maps as a means of reporting crime areas as long as the maps accurately “depicts its campus, noncampus buildings or property, and public property areas” (Regulations, § 668.46 (c)(8)). Finally, officials at higher education institutions are required to make “a reasonable, good faith effort to obtain the required statistics” from local or state police agencies, and, as long as the request is made in good faith, “It is not responsible for the failure of [Page 111]the local or State police agency to supply the required statistics” (Regulations, § 668.46 (c)(9)).

Educational institutions also have a preventive function under CACSA. This duty requires officials to provide timely warnings of crimes reported to campus security authorities as well as any activities “considered by the institution to represent a threat to students and employees” (Regulations, § 668.46 (e)(1)(iii)). However, “an institution is not required to provide a timely warning with respect to crimes reported to a pastoral or professional counselor” (Regulations, § 668.46 (e)(2)).

The regulations incident to CACSA require that institutional annual security reports include more than crime statistics. More specifically, these reports must include

On a final note, the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act expressly denies a private cause of action to individuals to enforce its provisions (CACSA, § 1092 (8)(c)).

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